Ho Chi Minh (Saigon)

We spent 5 nights in Ho Chi Minh (formally known as Saigon and still known by this name in a lot of locations including the airport).

HCMC didn’t have the same energy and vibe as Hanoi – it just felt like a big city… And unlike Hanoi, there weren’t really a lot of interesting things to see. After the war, they tore down a lot of the French colonial buildings and replaced them with more modern buildings and skyscrappers. Even the riverbank was not pleasant as it was just a big highway as opposed to a nice promenade. However, we did walk around quite a lot and visit some places. Also, our friends that we saw at various points in Vietnam caught up with us again and we had fun exploring the city together.

Bui Vien street

We stayed in an apartment just off this busy street. This is the ‘night life’ street full of restaurants, bars and night clubs. It was crazy busy and loud during the night, but a bit less busy during the day.

We saw a few shady characters on and around this street at night and it seemed that a few of the side streets were the red light areas.

Just at the bottom of our apartment, there was a drinks shop where they served a great variety of cold drinks. The owner turned out to be from Amsterdam! He had Asian descent – his mother was Vietnamese, but never taught him any of the language. The drinks shop was actually his 3rd business – his main business was selling serving robots to restaurants and selling filtrated water ice machines. He was really friendly and interesting and we spent a couple of nights in there chatting with him.

War Rembemberence Museum

We spent a few hours at this museum dedicated to the Vietnam War (known in Vietnam as the ‘American War’). They had some interesting artefacts and information about the war including war crimes and torture that Americans committed and the effects of Agent Orange. However, we found this museum to give a very one-sided view of the war (I guess the victors always get to re-write history) and I felt sorry for all those who fought and died for the South Vietnamese army – it’s like they never existed. Their history has been completely wiped out. It was solely against the Americans (only at two points in the museum were Australians mentioned – one as a victim of Agent Orange and one a journalist) and I didn’t see any mention of the British or French involvement (except for being journalists and photographers)… I had to actually Google how long the South Vietnamese fought on after the American troop withdrawal (2 years) as this wasn’t mentioned at all! The narrative that they want you to walk away with is that the innocent Vietnamese were all small villagers peacefully tending their rice crops when out of nowhere the horrible American Imperialist Invaders dropped bombs and chemicals on them.

We discovered a kid’s playroom in the museum and the kids had loads of fun dressing up in various Asian clothing.

Other buildings downtown

Unfortunately, the Freedom Palace was getting ready for a Lunar New Year (Tet) celebration so it was hard to actually see what the palace looked like. The cathedral was also under construction and covered in scaffolding, but we could see the French colonial Post Office and the Palais de Justice.

Cu Chi Tunnels

We took a day trip out to the Cu Chi Tunnels – we went to the Ben Duoc tunnels which were supposed to be less touristy than the other Cu Chi Tunnels. It was a bit difficult to orient ourselves and figure out where to go but we finally managed to find the tunnels. The tour started off with a really boring video that the tour guide insisted we sit through (at one point R tried to walk away but the guide scolded him to ‘sit down’ 😂). The video consisted of several minutes of footage of the Cu Chi villagers tending to their rice paddies and then several minutes of “(X) was awarded a medal for killing Americans, and (Y) was awarded a medal for killing Americans. This was interspersed with a bit of footage showing villagers running through the tunnels and a bit about the land mines and traps they set to kill Americans (finally some info showing that it wasn’t just the Americans being brutal!)

We then got the chance to walk through several meters of tunnels – they are very small – even our short daughter had to bend over and at one point sit on the ground to scooch through! It was also very hot and definitely not for the claustrophobic.

Our guide then showed us how they covered up and hid the tunnel entrances (and how small they were) and people had the chance to try to climb down and through.

The tour also showed us an underground meeting room, which was a bigger room – thank god! And a kitchen where they vented the smoke from fires and cooking out to another location and only cooked during the day so it couldn’t be seen by American forces. They also showed the blacksmith and shoe maker but I didn’t take any photos of these rooms as they were just re-creations.

As we were exiting the tunnels we walked by a display of the traps they set to trap and kill Americans – they were pretty gruesome! (if you zoom in, you’ll be able to see the names of the traps and what they do)

In the tunnel complex, there was a rather large temple complex. Not dedicated to Buddah or any Hindu god, but to Ho Chi Minh!! (He is treated like a God in Vietnam)

Tet

One evening we were walking back towards our hotel and came across an outdoor Tet (Lunar New Year) celebration. There were tons of food stalls, dancing dragons and music.

The last supper

On our last night in Saigon (and Vietnam), we ate at a vegan restaurant that had good reviews on Google. It was down a back alley behind our apartment. The restaurant had a really great atmosphere – I think it was the family living room. Unfortunately, the food was mediocre – we had their specialty of Mushroom Hot Pot. (But the fried spring rolls were delicious!)

And of course, when in Saigon, do as the locals do…

From here, we were originally going to take a bus to the Cambodian border and work our way up to Phnom Penh, but given our son’s car sickness issues and the fact that he said he didn’t want to see the museum or killing fields after learning about the Khmer Rouge, we decided to fly directly to Siem Reap instead and visit the Angkor Wat temple complex. However, when we arrived at the airport, the monitor said that our flight was cancelled! We received no message of communication about this and there was no airport representative that we could talk to. We met several other people in the same situation. Finally around 10:30 am (we got to the airport before 9) they opened a check-in for another flight, but the same company. They rebooked everyone from the 8:30 am flight and the noon flight (our flight) onto the 17:30 flight! So, we had to spend the whole day at the airport waiting…. We finally got to our apartment in Siem Reap at nearly 10 pm instead of our planned 2pm!